


shadow heart

by orphan_account



Series: the smell of corruption [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kill them all," he hisses, and his smile is full of daggers. Dark!Darling Pan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shadow heart

Just as John shuts the trunk of his—his car—someone screams. Ruby, who's been watching John with a sly smile, immediately looks up and frowns. "What was that?" she asks, and Wendy's brothers exchange a glance.

"Maybe you should check it out," John offers. Ruby nods and looks at him apologetically.

"May I go with you?" Wendy asks, just as the young woman brushes past her. Ruby looks down at her, and looks back at John, but Wendy ignores them both when there's another scream—this time inhuman—and a black blur  _whooshes_  past them.

Wendy blindly turns and runs after it, her heart racing.  _That's—but it_ can't _be—_

The clock tower is a few blocks away (Storybrooke really  _is_  a small town) and the shadow— _his_  shadow—is getting further and further away.  _I can't lose it._

Wendy takes a deep breath and pushes herself harder, running faster than she's ever run—not even when there were jungle cats on her tail. She pushes past people and skips onto the asphalt when no one moves for her. Some people are too focused on the shadow to notice her at all.

She reaches the clock tower in a few minutes, her chest heaving and face flushed. She pushes through the crowd, then takes a moment to rest her hands on her knees to catch a breath—all while surveying the scene.

Peter ( _Peter!_  a part of her sings and the other hisses) is standing in the middle of the road, laughing, and Rumplestiltskin faces him. The shadow hovers over Peter, waiting for his command. A steaming hole is in the asphalt behind Rumple, and the clock tower's glass is cracked into spider-webs. Wendy almost wonders why she was worried—and then she sees the crooked dagger in Rumple's hand.

_How did he get it?_  she thinks, wildly, because only Neverland (which sees everything) and Peter (who is Neverland) are supposed to know where it was, and Rumple's not supposed to  _have_  it.

"We both know how this ends, Rumple," Peter calls, a cheeky grin that used to infuriate her on his face. Wendy's mouth is scarily dry, and she nearly can't breathe. _Oh, Peter, be_ careful _.._. "You or me. And I don't know about you, but I intend to walk away from this."

"As it happens, so do I," Rumple retorts. "I have something to live for."

Peter throws his head back and laughs. "Are you saying I don't?" he says, arching an eyebrow, his grin widening, his hands spreading out. "What if you didn't have a reason to live? Would you still be willing to fight me?"

Rumple furrows his brow, but all it takes is one nod from Pan and the shadow darts away—to a brunette woman standing next to Baelfire and his family. Rumple looks on, panicked as the shadow drags the screaming woman to Peter. When Bae tries to intervene, Peter holds up a hand and the whole section of the crowd are pushed back, knocked to their feet.

Wendy can't help but follow them, and when she looks back, Rumple's gaze locks with hers. Rumple scowls and holds out a hand, and an invisible force grabs Wendy around the middle and yanks. Wendy can't stop the shriek as the force pulls her to Rumple.

She reaches Rumplestiltskin the moment the woman reaches Peter. Rumple fists a hand in Wendy's hair and pulls her head back, hovering the edge of the dagger over her throat. Peter does the same thing to the woman, who is held in place by the shadow. Wendy struggles, but Rumple holds fast. "Don't fight, dearie," he hisses in her ear. "You don't want this blade touching you."

Wendy strains to see the edge of the dagger and gasps when she sees the glistening black liquid on its tip. "Peter, his dagger has dreamshade!" she shouts, and Rumple scowls over her. Instantly, she feels a suffocating thing over her mouth and chokes—she can breathe, but she can't  _talk_.

Peter's eyes widen slightly, and then they narrow. His grin vanishes as he says, "Let her go, Rumple. You won't like the consequences if you don't."

"What a mutual thought," Rumple retorts. "Perhaps we could release them both?"

"You first," Peter sneers. The woman's eyes are wide and terrified, but she's only looking at Rumple. Wendy swallows and stares at Peter, wordlessly shaking her head.

" _Wendy!_ " someone roars, and while Peter and Rumple don't look away from each other—Wendy glances over to the scene, where John and Michael are furiously trying to push people out of the way. "Bastard! Let her  _go!_ "

Rumple ignores him. "Release the bird," Peter says, his voice strong and sure. "Do that, and Belle goes free. I swear it."

Belle releases a half-suppressed sob and shakes her head. "Don't do it, Rumple!"

"Shut up," Peter hisses, pressing his dagger closer. Wendy can see a little pearl of red emerge and trickle down. "I'm giving you three seconds, Rumple. Three—two—one—"

Rumple lets her go, and the overwhelming pressure on her face and chest lifts. "Peter," Wendy breathes, stepping away from Rumple and hastening forward. Peter takes a deep breath and pulls his dagger away from Belle's throat, shoving her forward with one hand. Belle staggers forward, rubbing her throat, and walks toward Rumple on shaking legs.

Halfway to Peter, and Belle to Rumple, Belle stops her with a gentle touch on the arm. Wendy turns, half-expecting Belle to attack her in some way, but all the woman does is smile at her. Wendy looks at her brothers—Michael, watching her in concern; John, glaring at Peter with unconcealed hatred—and back to Belle, whose red-rimmed eyes are kind and warm and  _understanding_.

"Bird," Peter snaps, and the moment is ruined. Wendy swallows hard and smiles back at Belle, then turns to Peter and breaks into a sprint. Peter catches her with one arm and presses his face into her hair, pulling her away to give her a critical once-over.

"He didn't touch you?" he murmurs, and Wendy shakes her head. He nods and turns away, where Belle is only a few feet away from reaching Rumple. Then he smiles darkly, and the shadow shoots forward again.

Belle has time to look up before the shadow's hands pass through her back and come out holding another shadow. Wendy stifles her scream while Peter laughs, and Belle collapses, limp, into Rumple's arms. "No!" Rumple screams, and Bae's whole group surges forward. Peter repels them with another outstretched hand, and when he wraps his arm around Wendy's waist, she wraps hers around his neck automatically.

"Wendy,  _no_!" one of her brothers shouts, and Peter Pan pulls the pixie dust necklace over his neck.

"Think lovely thoughts," he tells her as she sprinkles the pixie dust over them.

The moment he pushes off into the air, a bolt of green lightning hits them, and Peter Pan goes sprawling. Wendy glances up to see the dark-haired woman—wasn't her name Regina, or something?—lowering her hands. Both of them are on their feet in moments, and Wendy has just enough time to see a bowstring pulled back, aimed at Peter—

"Peter, watch out!" she screams, and Peter whirls around and catches the arrow in midair. The arrow quivers in his hand, and Wendy's knees nearly give out underneath her. Peter drops the arrow, and his grin returns.

"Baelfire, when will you  _learn_?"

"That's what I was thinking," Baelfire— _he_  was the one that shot Peter?  _Bae?_ —replies. "But maybe it  _is_ possible for you to repeat your mistakes."

Peter doesn't bat an eye, but Wendy gasps when she sees the hovering purple magic start swirling at his feet. She stumbles toward him, a hand outstretched, but the magic swarms up his body to linger at his neck, and when her fingers brush the waves, a current sends a powerful ripple of electricity

Wendy picks up Peter's dropped dagger and holds it out, trying her best to look threatening. "No one touches him," she declares to the crowd.

"Bird, don't be stupid," Peter hisses at her.

"I'm trying to help you," she tells at him over her shoulder. An angry man steps forward, and Peter's shadow dives in from the sky to pass through his body. When he falls to the asphalt, eyes limb and unseeing, Wendy barely has time to process the murder before more movement catches her attention.

John steps forward, a hand held out, trying to be placating. "Come now, Wendy," he says, unable to keep the anxiety out of his voice as he looks at the glowering Pan. "You're free from him now."

_Free_ , a part of her whispers, and it brings up memories of her cage and the wild chases through the jungle and the cruel, barbed words that used to make her cry at night. But all of those memories are distant, now, back when she spent her first days at Neverland.

The singing part of her—the part that revels in the chase and the thrill of danger—brings up memories of outrunning jungle cats, harsh kisses and fingerprint bruises on her hips and green, green, _green_  eyes.

Wendy stares at her brother, who's still talking, and feels her face fall.  _John, Michael, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry—please, please, forgive me._

John's voice has a touch of urgency to it, as if he can see she's not reacting to his words. "All you have to do is drop the knife and walk away."

"Good advice, child," sneers Rumplestiltskin, advancing closer. "I suggest you take it." His face is grief-stricken and murderous and desperate, all at the same time—a combination that strikes fear deep in her bones. His dagger glints in the daylight. When Wendy doesn't move, he shrugs, scowling. "Well, no one can say I didn't warn you."

"Wait," says John, and he and Michael stride over. Wendy watches them with wide eyes and realizes what's happening only when Michael wrestles the knife out of her hand.

"No— _no!_  You can't let him  _kill_  him!" she screams. John grabs her arms and pulls her away, wriggling and shrieking and turning to face Peter. "No— _Peter!_ "

Peter shoots her a sardonic smile, and his green eyes burn in a way that terrifies her. "It'll be all right, bird," he says, looking at Rumple with a sneer on his lips. "Do it, then. Let's see if you truly  _are_  a coward."

Rumple raises the dagger. Wendy doesn't scream and watch; she twists around and sinks her teeth into John's wrist. John muffles a yelp and lets go of her, and she turns away with a savage snarl, pushing off her foot and colliding with the Dark One.

She might be young, but her legs are powerful and Rumple is disoriented from grief, and both of them tumble to the ground. The dagger clatters across the road, and Wendy barely pays attention to her surrounding when she lunges for it and grabs the hilt.

Rumple freezes, and so does the entire crowd. Wendy keeps her grip firm on the dagger's hilt as she climbs to her feet and points the dagger at Rumple. "Release him," she says. "I know you know a way to undo that spell, so undo it."

Rumple bares his teeth at her, and when he raises his hand, it shakes. The purple swirls away from Peter's neck and sinks into the ground, and Peter lets out a choked sound before stumbling forward.

Wendy catches him and bears his weight, and together they sink to their knees. Peter's gasping, clutching his chest, and his face is pale and sheened with sweat. "You stupid, stupid boy—" Wendy says, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand.  _Don't cry, Wendy, don't show him you care._

Peter can't choke out a reply, and she turns him around so his back is nestled in her lap. "I'm here, Peter, I'm so sorry," she whispers to him, his face crumpling. Peter swallows, his green eyes dark and black lines creeping up his face. He tries to say something, but all that comes out is a dry rasp, and Wendy turns to Rumplestiltskin. "Save him!"

Rumplestiltskin turns to her and bows, but the hatred makes his eyes look black. "Of course, it's hard to do two things at once. The antidote to dreamshade is in my shop, which is the farthest away from here. Would you rather me protect you from the Queen or save your precious monster?"

" _He's not a monster!_ " Wendy screams. "Why don't any of you understand that?"

"It's too late," Peter rasps, and Wendy turns back to him, shaking her head.

"It's never too late, Peter. You'll be fine, you're Peter, you can't lose—"

"You're mine," he tells her, hoarsely. "Don't forget that." The moment the words are out of his mouth, he starts coughing, and on the last one he coughs up plum-colored blood onto his shirt. Wendy stifles her sob with her hand and lowers her head to touch his forehead.

"Wendy-bird," he sighs, and he lifts a trembling hand up to brush her cheek—the only tender gesture she can remember ever receiving from him. He sighs her name again, and then his eyes fix on something in the distance and turn flat.

A scream claws its way out of her throat and shoves its way past her lips, and she tightens her grip on Peter. Something happens in the crowd—John or Michael trying to get to her, maybe—and she feels rather than hears the rumbles that shake the ground.

It's a long time before she manages to pull herself away from Peter's body. She can hear the silent whispering of the wind that means a shadow's nearby, and she pulls away to look at her bloodstained clothes and swallows the lump in her throat. "Take him to Neverland," she tells his shadow, and it bundles Peter's body up like a child and flies off.

Rumplestiltskin still stands guard, and now the only people waiting for her are her brothers, Bae, Snow White, Charming, and Emma.

"Wendy—" Michael says, his voice soft and horrified, all at once. I don't blame them, Wendy thinks, squeezing her eyes shut. Before she can question her resolve, she strides over to Rumplestiltskin and whirls him around, holding the dagger by her head.

Her arm trembles—she wants to kill him so badly—but his eyes are flat and lifeless and black, and she can't do it. Wendy fists his suit in her hand, tears welling in her eyes and lips trembling, and tries to stab him. Her hand can only move an inch before it stops, hovers over him again.

"Do it," he says, curling his upper lip. "You'd be doing yourself a favor."

Wendy hiccups and the hand holding the dagger starts to shake. "I can't," she whispers, hating herself and relieved at the same time. "I'm not you. I'm not a murderer."

"What was  _Pan_ , dearie? An innocent boy who meant no harm?" he sneers, and Wendy itches to slap him across the face. But Belle's smile—and Peter's broken promise—is still fresh in her mind, and she turns away.

Instead of killing Rumplestiltskin, like she'd wanted, she bends down and plunges the dagger into the ground next to her foot. It sinks into the asphalt like butter, and she carefully carves out the space around her feet.

When she's done, her shadow peels itself from the floor and stands up. "Wendy," Michael says, stepping forward. Rumplestiltskin moves, not voluntarily, but Wendy stops him with a hand. "Wendy, you're not seriously going back there, are you?"

Wendy swallows. "Where else would I go?"

"Home," John says, joining Michael's side. Everyone else is silent, but Snow has had her hands clasped to her mouth the entire time she's been here, and she's being held close by Charming. Emma has a crease between her forehead, and Bae can't keep his eyes off the spot where Peter—where Peter—

"Home," Wendy says, tasting the word like she's never said it before. "You mean our house in London? But you said it was knocked down.

"We can build a new house, just like the one in London."

She thinks of the tree house and jungle cats and heat and fairy dust flowers and sighs, tears pricking her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I love you, both of you."

Before her brothers can respond, her shadow swoops down and grabs her hand, its glowing yellow eyes bright with an unspoken question. Wendy's tear-choked sigh is its answer, and it picks her up so it's hovering in the air. Wendy makes sure to hold the dagger to her as the shadow lifts up, higher and higher, until Storybrooke's lights are pinpricks and her brother's screams for her to  _come back, come back_  are unable to be heard.

_Forgive me. Please._

* * *

Neverland is completely,  _utterly_  empty. Not even the jungle cats prowl its shores anymore, and the mermaids don't haunt the waters. She can  _feel_  the emptiness the moment the shadow lowers her to the beach and her bare feet dig into the sand and eventually the dirt. Wendy drops the dagger and stumbles to her knees in the jungle, burying her face in her hands.

Wendy's sob is the type that makes her shoulders shake and eyes burn and lungs rattle.  _I shouldn't have run after that shadow,_  she tells herself.  _I should've left with John and Michael, like I was supposed to._

A crack of thunder makes her look up from her arms to see black clouds swirling above her. Wendy slowly gets to her feet and walks to her tree house, half-expecting it to be gone, just like the rest of the empty land.

When she sees her furniture and her bed still intact, another lump wells up in her throat, and she sits on the mattress.

_Consider this a gift... to welcome to you Neverland._

The rain patters outside, lasting as long as her tears. When her eyes finally dry up to become red and puffy, she changes out of her bloodstained clothes and stares out the window, the one that overlooks the entire southern part of the island.

Without meaning to, she falls asleep, and the first thing she dreams of is Peter coughing up purple— _poisoned_ —blood. She tries everything from magic to Rumplestiltskin to the spring's water on Dead Man's Peak to save him, but the hole in his chest keeps oozing blood. When he smiles, his teeth are stained red. When he kisses her, he still tastes like apples and mint, with only a slight metallic tang.

He pulls away from the kiss and grips her elbow, resting his forehead against hers. "You are Neverland now, bird," he tells her. She tries to respond, but it's like she's under the spell that kept her from speaking—all she can do is stare at him as he pulls away and laughs. "Yes, the island loves you—it always has." He turns back to her, eerie smile still in place. "Avenge me. Kill them, Wendy," he hisses, and his smile is full of bloody daggers. "Kill them all."

The spell of her dream is lifted, and she smiles. "I will," she promises him. When she blinks, Peter is replaced by her, her face and hands bloodstained, gripping a crooked dagger over the pale body of Emma Swan.

She wakes up with a start, and all she can hear is the rain and the whispered words of the jungle.

_You are Neverland now, Wendy._

_Kill them all._


End file.
